


I Remained To Dream

by GooseWhiskers



Series: Hey Look, Blue Soup! [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, Mentors, Prophecy, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 14:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17768606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GooseWhiskers/pseuds/GooseWhiskers
Summary: The Wasteland hasn't been exactly welcoming to Nate, and after months of struggling for a foothold, his brave facade has all but crumbled away entirely. He cannot imagine finding anything worth holding onto out there in the skeletal ruins of home. But Mama Murphy seems to know something he doesn't, and offers an obscure vision to challenge Nate's growing despair.





	I Remained To Dream

            Predawn light cast the wastes an eerie gunmetal blue; a biting winter breeze cut through to the bone. Nate could not help but wonder whether this was purgatory. Looking out over the blasted forest, where ghoulish trees stood in fossilized vigil, it wasn’t much of a leap.

            He remembered when these same woods (were they, really?) sprawled bright with summer green, flecks of sun filtering through branches laden with new growth and promise (did they, ever?). Now, leafless oaks loomed like withered sentinels over a mummified landscape. Tendrils of fog hovered over the frozen river as if it, too, was giving up the ghost. _To think this place was ever home._

            Once the bustle of neighbors, cars, birds, _civilization_ hummed in the air. He’d taken noise for granted, even on occasion found cause to resent it. How childish and naive. Now _everything_ was gone. Even the echoes. This was life without Life; death without Death. Tied to, yet impossibly separated from both.  Lacking contradiction, both had lost their meaning.

            All that remained was the silence of true emptiness - of hopes extinguished. He felt it deep in his belly, pulsing in his gut like an icy stone. He put his hands in his pockets, hoping to fend off the chill. It was almost enough to make him sick. The silence rested on his shoulders, soft as rabbit fur. _You’re alive. You’re alive and you shouldn’t be._ It moaned a sinister requiem.

            Tears brushed unbidden against his eyelids. Nate blinked them back and rubbed his burning nose. No, he didn’t belong here - but neither did anything else. This liminal space cut free from both era and epoch was nothing but a vacuum. A pile of dust waiting to be scattered. His final curse was to be aware of it as it happened.

            “I’ve seen a lot through the years,” A rusty voice pierced the silence like a gunshot.

            “Mama Murphy,” Nate flinched as though struck. “I… didn’t hear you come up.” He offered a mirthless laugh, moving to help her.

            She was hunched over and trembling precariously. Walking uphill couldn’t have been easy, but Murphy smiled warmly through the wears of her age. Trembling on feeble legs, the old gypsy cast him a sympathetic look and grabbed his forearm for support.

            “It must seem like nothin’ but ash out there to the bare eye…” She drifted off for a moment, wetting her wrinkled lips thoughtfully. “Especially for someone who knew what the world was before.”

 _Because it_ is _nothing but ash._ He thought ruefully. “...No,” he answered belatedly, humor supplanted by a vein of bitterness, “I was thinking this is actually an improvement. Black snow was exactly the trim my neighborhood needed to really _pop_.”

            Murphy didn’t laugh. But she didn’t seem to take any offense, either.

 Nate was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to take particular notice. Nora _would’ve hated this._ Perhaps that was the only solace to be found in her absence. She could not suffer, now. But oh, it’d be nice to see her again. The weight of longing hurt worse than all the rest combined.

            Murphy replied after a moment of consideration. “Black’s not your color, sonny.”

            “You have another one in mind?” He stood rigid, bleak and wilted as the world around him, and inside - just as empty. It was hard to imagine being anything else ever again.

            “I was fond of the blue,” She chuckled hoarsely. “Tell me - what it is your lookin’ at out there.”

            He scoffed. “Tarnished statues eroded in the dirt. Timeless monuments withered away into sandblasted ruins, left untended for so long mankind no longer has the wherewithal to remember what they even stood for."  _Mankind._ Nate’s lip quirked. Even that word may as well be made up, for all the humanity left in the world.

            “Hmm.” Murphy gave his arm a gentle pat and smiled as if she knew something, “Don’t be fooled, son. They might be worn down a little - but they’re still _there_. And I… I can sense it. A spark under all that cinder, still. Burning _strong._ Stronger for all the adversity endured. It won’t be stamped out or silenced - no matter how its trod upon.”

            He cast a glance back out over the crippled woodland, but no such light was apparent. _I suppose she’s speaking metaphorically._ Aggravation threaded in his forearms, and he flexed his fingers impatiently.

            Murphy's eyes glazed over, a peculiar lilt to her voice, “It came back, and it's waiting for you. Find that afterglow. Find it; kindle that fire. _Find it_ … and the answers you’re searchin’ for won’t be lost in the dark forever.”

            The sticky tangle in Nate’s gut writhed, and he winced. _Our best days are yet to come,_ Nora’s memory teased, cruelly hopeful as her voice replayed with all the grating insistence of a scratched record. Another chill gnawed at him, this time not from the cold.

            Blinking away the fog in his eyes, Nate scowled. “... What does that even mean, Mama Murphy?”

            The old gypsy sighed, leaning heavily against him. “I’m sorry it’s not clearer, kiddo. I can only do so much without the chems, and even then… some truths you have t’find the meaning of on your own.”

            _Truth._ “Well. Thanks anyway.” For what, Nate didn’t know. _Prophecies and visions, dreams of a forgotten world…_ It was all the same _._

            Clumpy flakes of white began drifting down and the mist from the river spread, turning the distant horizon grey and indistinct. The pair stood together in considering reticence until Mama Murphy shivered faintly.

            “C’mon.”  He insisted gently. “You’ll freeze to death out here.”

            She clutched his hand as they turned toward the ruin of Sanctuary, squeezing it affectionately. “Don’t forget that spark, Nate. You got a heart like a comet, kid. The kind folks like to make wishes off of. _This_ is the kinda wish that just might come true. Keep searching, an’ when the time is right, it’ll find you. I know it.”


End file.
